AlphaFold (also known as AlphaFold2, AF2, or AF) is an advanced AI model developed by DeepMind for predicting the 3D structures of proteins from the amino acid sequence. It is a transformer-based method with excellent, state-of-the-art performance, winning the CASP14 competition.
ESMFold is a machine learning model that predicts protein 3D structures from amino acid sequences using transformer-based neural networks. Developed by META (formerly Facebook Research), it leverages evolutionary data for fast and accurate predictions.
Protein structure prediction is the process by which linear chains of amino acids and predicting its three-dimensional structures. The “folding problem” has historically posed significant challenges in molecular biology, as accurately predicting these stable forms has been complex and time-consuming, often requiring extensive experimental methods like cryo-EM or crystallography.